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Thursday, November 19, 2015

Vatican City, 19 November 2015 (VIS) –
This morning Pope Francis received in audience the participants in
the international conference “The culture of salus and welcome in
the service of man and the planet”, organised by the Pontifical
Council for Health Care Workers (for Health Pastoral Care), currently
being held in the Vatican, which coincides with the thirtieth
anniversary of the dicastery and the twentieth anniversary of the
publication of St. John Paul II's encyclical letter “Evangelium
vitae”.

In this document, said the Holy Father,
we find “the constitutive elements of the 'culture of salus':
hospitality, compassion, understanding and forgiveness. They are
Jesus' habitual attitudes towards the many people in need He
encounters every day: people suffering sicknesses of every type,
public sinners, the possessed, the marginalised, the poor and
outsiders. … These attitudes are those that the encyclical calls
the 'positive requirements' of the commandment regarding the
inviolability of life, which with Jesus are revealed in all their
breadth and depth, and today can, or indeed must characterise
pastoral care in relation to health: 'they range from caring for the
life of one's brother (whether a blood brother, someone belonging to
the same people, or a foreigner living in the land of Israel) to
showing concern for the stranger, even to the point of loving one's
enemy'”.

“This closeness to the other, to the
point of feeling that he is someone who belongs to me, overcomes
every barrier of nationality, social extraction and religion … as
the good Samaritan of the Gospel parable teaches us. It also
overcomes that culture in a negative sense in which, both in rich and
poor countries, human beings are accepted or refused according to
utilitarian criteria, especially in terms of social or economic
utility. This mentality is the parent of the so-called 'medicine of
desires': an increasingly widespread custom in rich countries,
characterised by the search for physical perfection at all costs, in
the illusion of eternal youth; a custom that leads indeed to the
rejection and marginalisation of all that is not 'efficient', that is
seen as a burden or a hindrance, or is simply ugly”.

Similarly, being a neighbour to others,
as Francis mentions in his encyclical “Laudato si'”, means also
taking on binding responsibilities towards creation and our common
home, which belongs to all and is entrusted to the care of all, also
for generations to come. … This conversion … to the 'Gospel of
creation” requires us to “make our own and become interpreters of
the cry for human dignity, raised above all by by poorest and the
excluded, as those who are sick and who suffer so often are”.

“I hope that in these days of study
and debate, in which you also consider the environmental aspect in
its aspects most closely linked to physical, mental, spiritual and
social health of the person, you may contribute to a new development
of the culture of salus, understood in its fullest sense. I encourage
you, in this regard, always to keep in mind, in your work, the real
situations faced by those populations who suffer as a result of the
damages caused by environmental degradation, whose impact on health
is often serious and permanent”, concluded the Pope.

Vatican City, 19 November 2015 (VIS) –
In view of Pope Francis' upcoming trip to Kenya, Uganda and the
Central African Republic (25-30 November), the Central Church
Statistics Office has published the statistics relating to the
Catholic Church in the three countries, current as of 31 December
2014.

Kenya has a surface area of 580,367 km2
and a population of 42,961 .000 inhabitants, of whom 13,862,000 are
Catholics, equivalent to 32.3% of the population. There are 26
ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 925 parishes and 6,542 pastoral
centres. There are currently 38 bishops, 2,744 priests, 6303
religious (798 male and 5,505 female), and 11,343 catechists. There
are 5,501 seminarians. The Church has 12,195 centres for Catholic
education, from pre-school to university level. With regard to
charitable and social centres belonging to the Church or directed by
ecclesiastics or religious, in Kenya there are 513 hospitals and
clinics, 21 leper colonies, 117 homes for the elderly, sick or
disabled, 1,173 orphanages and nurseries, 110 family advisory
centres, 11 special centres for social education or rehabilitation
and 203 institutions of other types.

Uganda has a surface area of 241,038
km2 and a population of 36,497,000 inhabitants, of whom 17,148,000
are Catholics, equivalent to 47% of the population. There are 20
ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 540 parishes and 6.900 pastoral
centres. There are currently 32 bishops, 2180 priests, 4,266
religious (567 male and 3,699 female), and 15,864 catechists. There
are 6.984 seminarians. The Church has 7,050 centres for Catholic
education, from pre-school to university level. With regard to
charitable and social centres belonging to the Church or directed by
ecclesiastics or religious, in Uganda there are 298 hospitals and
clinics, one leper colony, 16 homes for the elderly, sick or
disabled, 62 orphanages and nurseries, 130 family advisory centres
and other centres for the protection of life, 8 special centres for
social education or rehabilitation and 56 institutions of other
types.

The Central African Republic has a
surface area of 622,984 km2 and a population of 4.621.000
inhabitants, of whom 1,724,000 are Catholics, equivalent to 37.3% of
the population. There are 9 ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 119
parishes and 2,017 pastoral centres. There are currently 16 bishops,
350 priests, 387 religious (44 male and 343 female), and 6,279
catechists. There are 379 seminarians. The Church has 305 centres for
Catholic education, from pre-school to secondary level. With regard
to charitable and social centres belonging to the Church or directed
by ecclesiastics or religious, in the Central African Republic there
are 52 hospitals and clinics, 10 leper colonies, 11 homes for the
elderly, sick or disabled, 18 orphanages and nurseries, 8 family
advisory centres, 2 special centres for social education or
rehabilitation and 17 institutions of other types.

Vatican City, 19 November 2015 (VIS) –
The Holy Father has appointed Fr. Anthony Bernard Paul as bishop of
Melaka-Johor (area 20,364, population 3,696,000, Catholics 39,537,
priests 36, permanent deacons 9, religious 45), Malaysia. The
bishop-elect was born in Alor Star, Malaysia in 1953 and was ordained
a priest in 1989. He has served in a number of role in the diocese of
Penang, including parish vicar, pastor of various parishes, diocesan
head of vocations and parish administrator. He is currently pastor of
the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Penang and vicar for pastoral ministry.
He succeeds Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing, S.J., whose resignation from
the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was
accepted by the Holy Father.